Movie reviews from a Squeam Queen turned Scream Queen

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Oh, shit, it’s cold? I had no idea, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, with all your footage of frozen landscapes. You can go fuck yourself with the frostbitten hand of one of your lowranking correspondents, Mainstream Media.

I’m sorry, Mainstream Media, I didn’t mean that. I hate you for all the other reasons there are to hate you.

Oh, hey, Reader. Sorry about that. Forgot you were here for a second. Anyway, it’s cold and I wanted to write about my favorite winter horror movies. I was inspired in part by my morning commute, which was cold as balls and horrifying in its own traffic-y way, but also by my ill-fated attempt at watching Jack Frost (yeah, that one) last night.

Mini-Review Time:Jack Frost (1997) has the aesthetic of an early-90s Olsen Twins movie. The music and acting quality are eerily similar to the Twins’ holiday “classic” To Grandmother’s House We Go. But the similarity is basically the only eery thing about Jack Frost. I’m notoriously easy to scare–seriously, go read any other entry on this blog–and this movie never, ever got me. The problem is not that snowmen cannot be scary. They totally can (the 1998 film starring Michael Keaton is a great example of that). It’s that THIS snowman is not scary. Unlike successfully scary clowns, this iteration of Jack Frost fails to deviate from the soft and cuddly iteration of the trope they’re attempting to lampoon. Jack Frost looks exactly like the animated version of Frosty the Snowman that’s been on ABC Family’s Christmas rotation since ABC Family was Fox Family (obligatory “only 90s kids” reference). Unlike its poster, the horror snowman has no fangs or talons or bloodred eyes. You might as well try to make a horror movie about an evil s’more. Tell me it’s murderous all you want, I ain’t scared of no s’more that doesn’t have fangs. Or whatever. My comparison might have gotten a little off track. What I’m saying is that if horror filmmakers are attempting to highlight the terrifying aspects of the mundane or quaint, they first need to pervert it in some way. A “killer puppy” that looks exactly like an adorable little corgi is not scary. Something needs to be at least slightly off. The entire scary doll genre is a fine example of transforming a usually comforting item into a horrifying one with just a few tweaks. Anyway, Jack Frost is an Olsen Twins-esque movie with a random snowman rape scene thrown in. I know what I just said makes you want to watch it, but don’t. Rewatch Troll 2 instead.

So, what winter horror movies should you watch instead? This is a bit of a tough proposition, because holiday horror movies–which are generally shitty in an unfun way–are included in the winter horror subgenre. But littered among the New Year’s Evils and Black Christmases are the occasional gems.

I recommend watching the following movies on a snowy afternoon by the fire–whether it be in a fireplace or the skull of your vanquished enemy or just Nic Cage’s face.

I might be cheating a bit, because the most wintery these movies get is that mostly characters wear light jackets, but they’re set in February, so they technically count. Both versions are among my favorite slasher flicks, and the latter is, I think, one of the better arguments for more 3D horror movies. Side note: I don’t get why 3D has turned into the kid-friendly cinematic technology. Like, the immersive quality it lends to films is better suited to the terrifying experience of something like My Bloody Valentine or even Gravity than it is to, say, Cars 2. Oh, cool, Larry the Cable Guy in all three glorious dimensions. Fantastic.

What I really want is a pick-ax thrown at my face. Thanks for accommodating that desire, My Bloody Valentine.

Also: there’s an insanely long nude scene in the 2009 remake that–according to some people, myself included–parodies gratuitous female nudity in horror. Even if you don’t care to think about its contributions to discussions of the female body in horror, you will at least enjoy both versions on a primal, scary-stab-comedy-horror level.

I love Scary Santa movies. There’s something creepy about a nocturnal creature who watches you sleep and judges you that I feel hasn’t become nearly enough of a “thing” in horror movies. Scary clowns are all over the place, but scary Santa has just as much potential for massacring children.

This particular scary Santa movie is Finnish, smart and terrifying–in that order. The haggard inspiration of the Santa myth’s first appearance still gives me goosebumps.

I will happily quibble with you about whether Kubrik’s classic interpretation of Stephen King’s novel should even count as horror, because it transcends a bit into mainstream, psychological thriller. But I do think this movie is perfectly suited to a list of the best winter horror films because it magnifies the characteristics of winter that are, if you think about them, pretty terrifying. The Shining emphasizes the darkness, the biting cold and the claustrophobia of winter to heighten the horrors that transpire in the Overlook. They also make Jack Torrance’s descent into madness relatable from a seasonal perspective. Doesn’t everyone go a little nuts this time of year?

Dead Snow is another foreign language horror movie, but fits nicely into the classic American “horny youngsters in an isolated cabin” genre. The “evil dead” in this instance, however, are frozen Nazi zombies. Yay!

Beyond the pure delight of a bunch of wholesome Norwegians battling SS corpses, there’s a memorable outhouse sex scene that–luckily for me, but unluckily for you scat-enthusiasts out there–avoids poop imagery. This is pretty much how you know this is an imported horror movie, because an American version wouldn’t be able to restrain itself from making at least one shit joke/reference. This land is your land, this land is my land, etc.

The blog is a little late today, because in my first draft (which would have been on time) I made the mistake of trying to review the Sleepaway Camp franchise with a focus on the first film. That’s a fool’s errand for several reasons:

B) Subjecting Sleepaway Camp to an academic consideration of the cultural perception of trans* people is like dissecting an overcooked macaroni noodle. It gives far too much credit to this terrible film that is less a product of deep-seated cultural attitudes than the singular bizarre vision of the director. Transphobia in film is totally a thing, but Sleepaway Camp is unworthy of being dissected as an example of it.

C) The film’s cock-driven twist ending (spoilers, I guess, sorry) is so distracting it pulls any review of the movie in like the dick has a gravitational field. My last attempt at reviewing the movie ended with the profound (?!?!?) statement: “I bet Justin Bieber or One Direction or even Twilight would have a fraction of their fans if there were a cinematic avenue for tweens to sate their frustrating cock lust. Down with Justin Bieber! Up with (horror movie) dick!”

[The thing my boyfriend took away from this was that Justin Bieber was kind of a dated reference. But I’m really quite hip to what the tweens are SnapCatting on their mobiles.]

So… yeah, I’m rewriting this. I’ve learned my lesson, though, and I’m just going to focus on the Sleepaway Camp movies I actually like: Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers and Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland. Sleepaway Camp 4 was apparently just shot as porn and then retroactively given the Sleepaway Camp title. Sleepaway Camp 5 is by the same director as the first film and is unavailable to stream on YouTube, two great reasons not to bother with it.

Included below are my collective five favorite moments from both films. Wanna know the plot? Angela once had a penis, but now doesn’t, but it doesn’t really come up ever (even though it motivated her to kill in the first film), and now she’s the most enthusiastic camp counselor ever who deals with unenthusiastic/slutty/profane campers by murdering them. That’s not even a spoiler because you know who the killer is from the beginning. My favorite thing about these movies is the utter lack of suspense. You never ask who is going to kill who when. The answers are Angela and everyone and right now, duh. Props to Pamela Springsteen for her portrayal of one of my all-time favorite horror villains.

5. In Sleepaway Camp 3, Angela kills basically the entire population of the camp, but because she does it one at a time, no one really notices.

I don’t think you understand. Like, half the camp has disappeared and the main counselor is, like, “Hey, that’s weird, I haven’t seen half the campers for a while. What’s happening with all the kids?” and Angela says, “Oh, yeah, they were bad so I sent them home,” and he’s like, “Angela!” *sitcom-y finger wag* But then eventually she kills him, too.

4. “It’s a drill!”

Springsteen’s delivery is amazing. The snotty camper is all, *eyeroll* “What are you looking for, a gun?” and then Angela just power drills a hole in her dumb chest.

Yes, drowning in an old outhouse toilet full of leeches is at least in my top 5 fears, although it probably ranks behind going to a party attended by all of my ex-boyfriends.

1. 30 year old campers and 9 year old campers

In the proud tradition of the first Sleepaway Camp film, these movies feature teens played by grown ass adults, but also actual teen actors, who look like babies compared to their costars. And they flirt with each other in between murders. It’s all very off-putting and yet hilarious, like the Sleepaway Camp franchise as a whole.

Happy Halloween, y’all. Take a moment while you’re creeping and spooking to pour one out for Sleepaway Camp, will you?

Anyway, you’ve found your way to this blog post because your plans for this Halloween include a couch and cinematic entertainment, not super grody pub crawls or begging for candy or leaving your house. I love Halloween, but I’ve indulged in the time-honored tradition of movie-couching this lovely holiday since I was but a wee, cynical tween. When I was in 6th grade, I dressed up like Fairuza Balk from The Craft, but instead of joining my little brother in trick-or-treating I stayed home alone, watching Halloween movies and grumpily handing out candy. It was awesome, and it’s a tradition I’ve more or less honored every year since, with the exceptions of college Halloween party shitshows THAT DO NOT BEAR MENTIONING.

So, who better than me to guide you through the sometimes-depressing, mostly fun experience of the Halloween Movie Marathon? Let me be the Gothy-Tween-Virgil to your Zombie-Dante.

Rule #1: Dress up.

I don’t care if you’re alone, if you’re movie-marathoning because you weren’t invited anywhere, if LITERALLY NO ONE will be seeing your costume but you. Dressing up will make you feel better and set the appropriate mood for the movie marathon. If you don’t dress up, then it’s just a horror movie marathon, and you can have those year round. And, if your costume is particularly cool and/or adorable and/or hilariously awful, you can share it with all your social media friends. See, in the internet age, you’re NEVER ALONE.

Rule #2: Lights out or GTFO.

What do you mean, you’ll get scared if you do this movie marathon in the dark? Letting yourself get scared is essential to this cinematic experience. To allow yourself to be frightened by these movies is to momentarily loosen your grip on reality, to pack away your ever-present cynicism and, for just a moment, to believe in magic. Super creepy blood magic.

Rule #3: Refreshments.

I’m not going to dictate that you have popcorn balls and candy corn at your viewing (ALTHOUGH IF YOU INVITE ME, YOU FUCKING BETTER). I will recommend you have your favorite seasonal treat available in abundance. Pumpkin ale? Sure. BooBerry cereal? Also fine. And if you dislike most seasonal snacks, nibble what you like. The upside of intentionally discomforting yourself with horror movies is that you get to stuff your face with comfort food.

Rule #4: Keep social networking to a minimum, unless you’re doing more sharing than consuming.

For a couple of reasons: A) Parties and pub crawls always look way more fun on Instagram than they actually are, so if you’re movie-marathoning alone, it might bum you out. But no fear! Just don’t look at other people’s stuff. Post your own. You’re having way more fun, I promise. And B) If you’re doing this movie marathoning as a group, it’s super distracting for one person to be on their phone all night just browsing Tumblr. C’mon, don’t be rude.

Rule #5: Alternate between Hardcore Horror and Horror Comedies

Consider this system a palate cleanser. Scary movies will be scarier after a comedy, comedies will be funnier after watching someone saw off their own hand.

The first time I watched Vamp, I had just graduated from college, started my first real job (with a real life adult salary and rules about using Tumblr on my office computer and everything), moved cities, and all of my friends and my superhot boyfriend—did I mention I have a superhot boyfriend?—were living in different states and countries.

While I felt really lucky (mostly because the adults in my life think 22-year-old English Lit grads with salaries are rarer than self-immolating unicorns), I was also anxious and scared and slightly miserable. My real life terror about rent, love, friendships, artistic integrity, my legacy and the alarming lack of counter space in my bathroom finally surpassed my reservations about the horror genre. I could laugh in the face of Murder Clowns and Pleasure Monsters from Hell. Horror movies, if anything, were an outlet for my quarterlife crisis and resulting cushy, privileged anxiety. A monster that gets sucked back into hell after 90 minutes of terrorizing virgins was way preferable to the crippling self-doubt I was fighting day and night.

This movie was the catalyst for my summer of coping with adulthood through fake blood exposure (which is also the title of my first self-help book, probably). So, without further self-reflection, I give you Vamp:

Naked Dude Sightings: Zero, although we do get some bare upper dude body for a second

Plot Synopsis Pulled from Dubious Internet Source: “Two fraternity pledges go to a sleazy bar looking for strippers to entertain their college friends. They have problems with transportation, Biker gangs, and worst of all, the staff of the bar, all of whom seem to be vampires, with Grace Jones playing the head vampire.” –Some Rando on IMDB

5-Second Review: Grace Jones is mesmerizing in sometimes cool, sometimes goofy ways, the main characters are a little dull, lots of the movie makes very little sense, it’s about 20 to 30 minutes too long, but it’s also pretty fun and I recommend starting your own horror journey with it.

Goes best with: Champagne and pizza. Blood and cockroaches if you really want an immersive Vamp experience.

Top 5 “Wait…no… What?” Moments

5. This apparently color-coded gang of people you think are vampires but (spoiler) are not actually

The first odd thing is that membership in this gang seems contingent upon being an albino man or black woman. We meet them when our protagonists offend them somehow (so testy, these cultural stereotypes), and there’s a bit of a rumble among them before the dude-bros can escape to Vampire Strip Club of Death Featuring Grace Jones. This confrontational scene in the diner deals in some pretty obviously terrible stereotypes, relying on culturally embedded characterizations of albino people as evil and black women as savage or bestial (the black women don’t actually use any words in the scene, instead communicating through growls). We’ll be seeing this gang throughout the movie. I hate that this has to be said, but denying characters (especially those who are members of marginalized groups and are thus infrequently represented in mainstream fare) of their basic humanity in representation is shitty. Huge duh.

What’s weird about the gang is that they’re presented as vampires. The viewer assumes they’re vampires. They show up after dark. They seem super evil. The men are pale, and the film focuses on the women’s teeth. These are codified vampire things. But they’re not, which you don’t find out until the end and not even in a twist-y kind of way, but in a “how did you not know they weren’t vampires?!” kind of way. Like, I don’t know, man. They were doing some hardcore vampire shit.

4. The Implausible Strip Club Dead Zone

Our protagonists. Would do and would do.

The two main characters are frat pledges who want to be frat-bros (because hot babes, bro, tubular) so they make a deal with the Super Important Bros (what are they actually called? Ministers of Fratitude?): they’re in, IF they can find a stripper for the frat’s party that night. But, oh no, where are they gonna find a stripper?! So, our heroes get a ride to the nearest place they can find strippers, some city that is hundreds of miles and several hours away.

Yes, reader, you read that correctly. This movie’s entire plot is set in motion by the following conditions: A) this fraternity has no existing infrastructure in place for stripper/exotic dancer procurement and has to outsource the task to a couple of freshmen, B) there are no women who strip in a moderately-sized college town, and C) there are no women who strip within hundreds of miles of this moderately-sized college town. I adamantly call bullshit on all three counts.

Were you to reverse the genders of strippers involved here, I might buy it. I feel like I’ve been searching for a male strip club in each successive town I’ve moved to and have yet to find one. I have, however, been able to find venues advertising female strippers pretty much everywhere. There used to be a law in my state that the capital had to be located so that it was possible to reach it by horse in one day from any location in the state. I’m pretty sure a similar rule has been written into the constitution. But it’s on a national level, and instead of the capital it’s a strip club.

3. The Guy Who Played Long Duk Dong Doesn’t Play a Racist Stereotype in this Movie

Our heroic dude-bros need to get an implausible ride to Stripperville. Wanna know who they get the ride from? Some obnoxious rich asshole… played by Gedde Watanabe! AKA the guy who played Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles in 1984! AKA the worst Asian character of the 1980s (seriously, the fucking ’80s which, you’ll agree, was not our nation’s most culturally sensitive decade)! Amazingly, though, Watanabe doesn’t play a super offensive Asian caricature who’s more of a joke than a person. He’s just a normal dude with too much money and an obvious desperation for friendship. His ethnicity isn’t played for laughs! Woo, progress!

2. This guy might know this girl at the strip club from high school or something? But it doesn’t matter?

One of the protagonists knows this girl at the strip club (the only stripper who’s not a vampire). Or doesn’t. She keeps going, “I can’t believe you don’t remember me!” and he’s like, “Were you in my history class?” and she all playfully goes, “Um…no!” And then eventually she tells him where he knows her from, but it’s so boring I don’t even remember what it was and I don’t care enough to look it up.

1. Grace Jones.

Everything she does.

All of it.

Grace Jones gives the unsexiest strip tease I’ve ever seen in this movie. She reveals almost nothing. She does it in a red clown wig. And yet it’s mesmerizing.

Her character is supposed to be the vampiric version of Cleopatra, which is pretty spot on, because Jones radiates the glamour and confidence that makes it really plausible she’s one of history’s most iconic women. And the character is fucking boss. Men crumble at her feet or are literally devoured by her. Oh, also [SPOILER ALERT FOR THE BEST PART OF THE MOVIE]: when she’s killed by the light of day (boo!), the ash shell of her corpse gives the protagonist the finger. Bless you, Grace Jones, you glorious bad ass.

Couldn’t find a screenshot from the ashy finger, but this is a beautifully photographed approximation.

Next week’s review will be of The Stuff, in which sentient low-calorie ice cream goes on a killing spree.